Busy Needles.

Been a while since my last post - to which I got some really interesting replies . Thank you to everyone who took the time to give me their thoughts. I appreciate it.

I've been quiet due to being busy. I have been making like mad as I had confirmation of getting a stall at a show I want to do. There will be more on that closer to the date.......it involves the dreaded 'C" word, and I think October is still too early! I also had another week with Mike at home on a weeks holiday which was lovely, and I always like to take the time to be with him, and that means less knitting time.

Another reason for a bit less on line stuff was helping my Mum a bit after her operation, though to be fair, she is an amazingly strong woman, who coped with so much pain with so much strength and dignity. I am such a wuss that I think I might be a changeling.


Last week I managed to complete three pairs of hand warmers and at the moment these have not gone onto Etsy as I am holding on to a certain amount of stock for the above mentioned event. I thought I would share pictures of them here though as I am really pleased with how all three pairs came out.

 The colours and design for this pair were inspired by a set of Matryoshka Dolls that Mike bought for Mum years ago. The colours are all hand dyed by me and I think they are just so pretty.

The blue and cream hand warmers, again using my hand dyed yarn, are inspired by my total love of this colour combination. As a little girl I was  fascinated by Delft tiles and blue and white Willow pattern ceramics. I still am drawn to designs using these colours.

 The last pair - modelled beautifully by Ted (Mike's childhood bear) are quite a delicate design which I think reflects the more muted and natural toned colour palette. And once again all the colours are hand dyed by me.

One of the things that gets me whizzing through makes like these is listening to Audio Books. I love them. I also listen to Pod casts, but books are definitely my favourite. Quite a few rows were constructed listening to Stephan Fry read 'The Complete Sherlock Holmes' (which is about 60 hours worth of listening). I stopped at 'The Valley of Fear' as I needed a change. For a completely different pace I listen to two episodes of 'The Guilty Feminist' and then re-listened to Neil Gaiman's "Neverwhere' - probably my most favourite book ever.  That pretty much finished the hand warmers and I then decided to finish to sleeves of  doom on my Minetta cardigan and switch to The Rivers of London series, I am currently on book two 'Moon Over Soho' by Ben Aaronovitch.

 This pattern is a free one via Ravelry or Knitty and is by Kristen Kapur. I've made three versions of this garment now, and I love it. It fits well and is so easy to wear. The yarn is from The Uncommon Thread - I bought it a few months before I finished working there, and the base is their very soft and lovely Posh Fingering in a OOAK variation of Quiet Folly - it isn't really quiet enough more of a Shouty Folly.

Of course finishing this means on a personal knitting level I could cast on for something new. I chose the Elton Cardigan by Joji Locatelli. I am not using mohair as it gives me hives but am using fingering weight and lace weight, and am really enjoying the simple pattern repeats of fairly plain knitting.

This is a long one - whoops - right I am now off to nurse my cold - yes the family lurgy has finally got me. I think this might make this week a less productive one for me. Hope  you all have a healthy and busy week.